


Just Like This Setting Sun Is Returned to This Lonesome Ocean

by Birdbitch



Category: DCU
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, almost canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9847973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: Tim misses his best friend; Kon misses having a home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's been five thousand years since I touched TimKon and I just wanted to do a oneshot instead of focusing on the long story that I've got going on. Mostly unbeta'd. Title from "At the Bottom of Everything" by Bright Eyes, because even though there are rumors of Conor Oberst being a bad person, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" is still very much an album that reminds me of TimKon.

To be 19 must mean being hopelessly in love with your best friend. Tim obviously isn’t like every other 19-year-old--he runs his own company during the day and he fights crime at night and has for several years now--but even he’s not immune to some universal constants. During his lunch break, he works on homework for one of the online classes Hudson U offers, and he misses who he was four years ago, if not for the personality he had back then (19 comes with embarrassment over the past), then at least for lost potential at being something else. It’s a hard thing to describe, because it’s not that he hates where he is now, but he wonders about how different life might have been if only certain things hadn’t happened. 

On the front page of  _The Daily Planet_ , he sees a picture of Superboy and Superman and frowns, wondering where Kon has been lately. Not that Jon and Clark standing side-by-side doesn’t touch him in the part of his chest that still aches for his own father (that’s something that doesn’t go away, ever, even if he’s able to stop thinking about it for a while), but something about the two of them smiling on the front page in a way that Kon and Clark never were able to stand together feels...wrong. Or not wrong, but too foreign. 

Him and Kon, they’ve both been pushed out of the only roles that they’ve really known for the better part of their more conscious existences, but Tim is the master of self-reinvention; Kon, by contrast, has always been defined, at least in some part, by what other people have had to say about him. How do you become something else when “Superboy” was the only name you had for over a year? In any case, Tim sets aside  _ The Planet _ and rubs his eyes, tired. He misses Kon. He realized he was in love with his best friend just in time to watch him take off towards where Krypton used to be, and since Kon has gotten back from outer space, they haven’t had the chance to talk. Even though it seems like he’s seen everyone but Tim, too.

A week goes by with the ache in his rib cage and a cluster migraine threatening at the corner of his eye before Tim caves after a patrol and calls out for Kon, standing on the balcony of the penthouse he’s been living in, and he hopes,  _ hopes _ , that Kon’s keeping an ear out for him still; apparently, being in space prevented him from being able to pay his cell phone bill, and Tim can’t think of another way to reach him. Luckily, it works, and Kon floats down wearing civvies, a beige Dickies jacket and weatherproofed shoes--he must be coming from either San Francisco or Smallville, but Tim can’t tell which. “Are you nuts?” Tim asks, and Kon shrugs, touching down.

“Didn’t feel like changing for a 15 minute flight,” he says. So Kansas. “Nice digs, Rob.” He looks around, hands in his front pockets as if he’s trying very hard to be nonchalant about how fast he came when called for, or that someone might have seen him and would therefore be able to reveal his secret, or something. Whatever it is, it’s not working, and it’s like there’s something vibrating under his skin so violently that Tim can almost see it.

Tim swallows. “You can come in, if you want,” he says. “Unless I pulled you away from anything important.”

“Just homework. College sucks, man.” Kon yawns, scratches the back of his head. Again, Tim gets the sense he’s faking it. He doesn’t call him on it.

“I like it.”

“Yeah, but you  _ would _ ,” Kon says, but he’s smiling, and he follows Tim inside anyway, takes a seat on the couch and watches Tim carefully. His smile falters a little and he makes like he’s about to stand back up. “What’s wrong? You’re limping a little on the left.”

“I’m not--that’s--” He’s surprised Kon even noticed at first, but then isn’t, at all, because Kon’s bullshit detector has gotten impossibly good lately, and even besides that, they used to train together all the time. Is it so unusual that he’d be able to pick out a limp? “I fell kind of hard during patrol. It’ll be fine with Motrin and some careful stretches.”

“You’re sure?” It doesn’t get Kon off the edge he’s gone to.

“Yeah. Sure. It’ll probably bruise, but that’s nothing I’m not used to, and it’s not why I called for you.”

“No?”

“How was Krypton?”

Kon shrugs again. “It’s, you know, an asteroid field,” he answers, and for a moment, he looks immeasurably sad. Kon’s face is vulnerable. It makes the ache in Tim’s chest come back with a vengeance, like he should kneel down and hold onto his friend and do something to help. He can’t, though. “I mean, I knew it would be, but I had hoped. I don’t know.” And Kon isn’t much of a crier, so he doesn’t cry now, but he’s bothered and he has to close his eyes, and Tim steps forward, closer. “Sorry, man. I don’t really want to talk about it right now.” He waits before he says, again, “Sorry. Uh. Was there anything wrong, you wanted to talk about?” 

“There doesn’t have to be anything wrong for me to want to see my best friend,” Tim answers, and he smiles a little at him. “It’s just been a while. I missed you.” This might be the moment he says something, but he’s anxious, and it gets him fiddling his fingers and talking too much, too fast. “I guess I got lonely without you crashing Gotham every other weekend.”

It gets Kon to smile again. “Not crashing when you invite me, Wonder Bread,” he says, and he stands up, broad and tall and powerful. He’s handsome, has been just as a consequence of his genetics, but there’s being handsome and there’s being  _ handsome _ , and it’s something about the glint in his eyes and the cut of his jawline. “What do you even do without me, here?”

Tim laughs. “Well, you know, I actually get work done, for one thing--”

“Like I don’t work--”

“And I--I think about how much better it is, not having to be alone.” Tim stares at the carpet, because he can’t look at Kon right now. 

“Tim.” Kon stands in his personal space bubble, invading it. “You know, the AI says Krypton was, I don’t know, some kind of paradise before they went and destroyed it. And I guess that’s sort of a thing, you know, if you build an AI you’re going to want to remember the good times, but I went there, and even knowing what it was before, I don’t really believe it.”

“Yeah?” Tim’s voice feels caught somewhere in the back of his throat.

“Sure. I mean, for one thing, the view wasn’t even all that great, but for another--you weren’t there.” Kon rocks back on his heels, hands back in his front pockets, eyes watching Tim for his reaction and a sly grin on his face. “I missed you too, Tim.”

And Tim is about to reply, about to say something asking what he means, if it’s what he thinks he means, but Kon breaks out into a full smile and takes off, too quick for Tim to even try to stop, even if he didn’t have that fall earlier. It leaves Tim feeling like the wind has been knocked out of him and convinced that Kon is going to do something reckless. He doesn’t get any sleep that night, and waits for the morning news. 

His alarm clock goes off at 6AM, and he goes through the motions of getting dressed, opting for light clothing since it’s late spring and the weatherman said that they’re looking at the possibility of a heatwave. He brushes his teeth, keeping an ear out for something that sounds out of the ordinary, and he watches for a few more minutes before leaving to catch a cab. The entire time he’s in the car, he waits for some kind of notification from either Tam or the  _ Gotham Post _ or something, but nothing comes. When he gets into the office, Tam looks at him with a cocked eyebrow and hands him a coffee while talking on the phone and getting information from R&D. 

In fact, the entire day passes almost entirely without incident, barring a mishap with one of the office printers and an explosion of toner that gets on almost everybody’s shirts and hands and pants while they all try to fix it. And it’s Friday, which leaves Tim heading to the nearby bar after work with Tam (but right before the evening rush), and he’s almost able to stop freaking out. Even his patrol, later, goes smoothly--nobody dies, and he doesn’t have any rogues to stop or anything major beyond catching a couple of bank robbers. (It’s just as well, considering the fact that his leg is still bugging him.) 

When he gets back to his apartment from a safehouse, Kon is waiting outside on the balcony, in different clothes but still civvies, like the night before. Tim opens the glass doors, and Kon comes in, floating half an inch off the ground. “You know, for someone who’s had several assassination attempts against him, you sure don’t have great security around here,” Kon says. 

“It’s not one of the things I really worry about anymore,” Tim answers. “Last night--”

“I know. I was acting kind of weird.” Kon’s feet touch the ground. “It’s--it’s been really weird for me, lately, with Clark and Jon and everything, and I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Is anything wrong?’ Tim asks, and Kon shrugs.

“I didn’t know anything had to be wrong for me to visit my best friend,” he replies, using Tim’s own words. 

“Then why’d you leave?”

“Last night? Or to Krypton?” Tim’s heart is hammering somewhere in his throat, and Kon leans in, touches his palm to Tim’s chest for a second. “You alright? Your heart is going a mile a minute.”

“Last night, Kon. Why’d you leave last night?” He tries to keep his voice level; it wavers. Kon is close, and his hair is a little damp, like he took a shower before flying over and it never finished drying even going at supersonic speeds. 

“I felt kind of stupid when I left,” Kon says, but it’s not an answer, and he hasn’t pulled away. His hand is warm through Tim’s thin t-shirt, and he lets his hand slide up to the back of Tim’s neck. He swallows, jaw muscle clenching, and Tim doesn’t feel like drawing this out, but there’s something good about the butterflies in his stomach that come with waiting. “Who does that, you know?”

“You did,” Tim answers. “Why’d you leave for Krypton?”

“I wanted--I don’t know. It’s like when you want to go back home, except you don’t know where home is, and when you get to where you think it might be, it’s the same rubble it has been for the past however many years it took between Jor-El shooting Clark off into space and me trying to go back.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then where--where do you think home is?”

Kon’s fingers are playing with the hair that’s grazing the back of Tim’s neck, where it’s gotten a little shaggy and where he’s due for a trim to keep it neat. “I don’t know,” Kon says, and his eyes close. “I don’t know anymore. Not in Smallville. Not Metropolis, or San Francisco, or Hawaii. Not Krypton.” He takes a breath. “Here feels pretty good, though.”

“Yeah,” Tim replies. “It does.”

“Your heart’s still beating really fast. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Do you need to use super hearing to tell?”

“Not really,” Kon says, and his lips quirk up into a smile. “Hey, Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve been standing pretty close for a while now, and all I can think about is how much I want to kiss you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

It feels like he’s melting. Kon’s a good kisser--he’s had a lot of practice--but there’s also the fact that it’s  _ Kon _ , and his hands are warm where they rest on Tim’s neck and his hip, and he takes his time and doesn’t try to push, like it’s enough to just have this. He’s sturdy where Tim holds onto him--not that he thought he wouldn’t be, but--and Tim sighs into the kiss, allowing himself to relax for the first time in a while. When Kon pulls away, he has a dopey smile on his face that Tim’s pretty sure he’s mimicking with a high success rate. “Yeah?” Kon asks.

“Come here,” Tim answers, and he pulls Kon back and kisses him again, harder, now that he knows that they get to have this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are much appreciated. Feel free to also drop by sailorbirdie.tumblr.com and leave a line.


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